Ever wonder, “What do they DO in there that takes so long?” Here’s your chance to find out!

Carmen is the attendant of a ladies room at an upscale dance club, where the elite of the social, artistic, and political scenes meet to get seen, hustled, seduced, and smashed. She confronts a crisis in her marriage as a parade of lovely ladies streams in and out, sharing makeup, advice, secrets and more. Meanwhile, the club’s waiter, a drag queen named “The Seagull”, plans to make the most of a once-in-a-lifetime chance to perform for his idol, the inspiration for his act, when she pops in to freshen up.

This recent article from Virginia Postrel helped me put my finger on what bothered me about Christina Aguilera’s song “Beautiful.” Or rather, the biggest thing that bothered me; Aguilera’s show-offy vocal stylings grated on me from the beginning, but it was really the lyrics that annoyed me. I just found out, from the Wikipedia article, that the music and lyrics were written by 1 of the former 4 Non Blondes, Linda Perry.

I’ve only just watched the video that I linked, since I figured I should watch something before I show it to you. Up to now, my exposure to the song has been involuntary; it’s been forced into my brain by our local Clear Channel pod. Aguilera does get props for including a drag queen in her video, but that idea isn’t new; in the liner notes for a Go-Go’s compilation I have, one of the members writes about how their (much more insightful) song “Beautiful” was inspired by a scene from a John Waters movie featuring Divine.

So what really rubs me the wrong way about this song is the assertion that “I/We/You are beautiful, in every single way.” In other words, everyone is beautiful. I’d kinda agree that everyone has something beautiful about them, but is everyone beautiful in every single way? Well, no. Adjectives serve to distinguish people, and when there is no distinction, the adjective becomes meaningless. If everyone were really beautiful in every single way, then no one would be beautiful, and beauty would cease to exist. But beauty clearly does exist in people’s minds, and very few people really think that everyone is beautiful in every single way.

Not too far away from me there’s a small homeless shelter for transgender and GLB youth ages 17-24. The church that housed the shelter had to close, and now they’re in a rented two-bedroom apartment. A recent New York Times article gives details. Here’s the shelter’s website and their Myspace page – which includes contact information if you want to volunteer and a Paypal link if you want to donate money.